Bait for a god

Bait for a god
  “Where am I?“ I breathed out into nothing in particular, knowing well enough that an answer might never come.
  Moments ago, I was running through the ruins of Springville with Higan. The last I remembered of him was the sound of his footsteps angling to herd me closer until everything fell away.
  Right in the middle of running, I shut my eyes unwillingly, and opening them again proved to be a task. Right after, my entire body felt heavy, and grogginess overwhelmed me.
  Another groan rattled through my throat as I pried my eyelids open regardless. However, to my utter confusion, it wasn’t the real world waiting for me. It was the forest, my forest, to be precise. The same one I’d once bled into after meeting Ethan months ago.
  Dark pines twisted up overhead, complementing the moonlight as it breaks through the branches. Just like the first time, I felt a beast tearing through the undergrowth and snarling low.
  Sitting up where I lay, my eyes landed on the brilliant ball of white fur approaching with fervor in her paws. Something about her demeanor confessed to an obvious agitation.
  “Feels familiar,” I rasped, noting her bright eyes which were burning brightly.
  I barely had time to brace myself before her jaws parted to speak. To my surprise, she bellowed, “WAKE UP.”
  Her claws hit me right by the ribs, and the last thought that crossed my mind right before I shot upright was, Deja vu.
  The wind tugged tresses away from my face as it threw pieces of dirt to prick my skin. My back arched against the jagged press of asphalt, and I wondered why my wrists simmered above my head.
  “Shit,” I winced out a curse as something hatefully burnt against the skin of my hands. One glance at the source and I could tell from the blinding sheen that it was Silver chains. The burn dug straight to the marrow, stinging every nerve raw.
  I didn’t need to raise my head to find what waited ahead. The storm and its owner, Vorare, were still blooming with black coils of cloud split by veins of white lightning that shattered the air.
  Despite the sight being familiar, fear still gripped my chest, the second my eyes locked on the entity. Even the cold in my fingertips thawed in the presence of my apprehension. It could also be the silver, but I didn't have time to decide.
  I knew. I knew when Higan opened his mouth in that office and spoke softly just to keep me leaning in closer, yet it was still utterly terrifying.
  Ethan would lose his mind when he finds out I walked willingly into this.
  “You are so predictable,” Higan’s voice crawled from my side.
  Curtly, I veered my head and body to face him. The chain dragged the skin of my wrist with the effort, but I bit down on the wince before it cut through my locked teeth.
  Higan stood as I would picture a proud king, with his features half lit by the unstable glow of dark magic ahead of us both. The glint in his eyes that had been missing in his confession was there. The hateful glint he had hidden too well.
  “So,” I muttered with faux composure. “This is what all that sad dog begging was for? Tying me up like a sacrifice to your pet monster?”
  In two steps, he inched closer, and his shadow stretched too long behind him. “I didn't entirely lie to you,” he muttered in a casual tone. “I can unsummon him. I can bind him back. But I left out one detail.”
  My heart thumped with dread as I tried to read his overly taut demeanor. Why was it still so tense? Hadn't he achieved what he wanted yet? He had me after all.
  “You never regret anything you do. That’s the detail, right?” I guessed right. I was sure I did.
  Higan’s lip twitched with almost a smile. “No. The detail is that I don’t regret you. Definitely don't regret the rejection, nor the torment, nor Becca, nor what she did to your parents,” his smile broke at the last part.
  Something inside me churned with twisted delight as my heartbeat thumped with unbridled hate. I could tell she was angry because she was me. I could also tell she was happy because she was me.
  I shifted once again to face the floor and bite down on my bottom lip tightly, hoping he wouldn't feel my intentions through my gaze.
  Higan leaned in further to the point I felt the heat of his body move as he did. “If you die here, you take all your chaos with you. And I get to keep what’s left of my town safe from whatever you’ll become. Damn, Lupomancer!”
  His mouth twisted like he just said a slur.
  I thought about what he said. And he was right. He wouldn't regret it. He wouldn't regret killing me at all. That was liberating to know because that meant I was free from any guilt that would come when I kill him.
  “Not talking?” he sneered. “I wanted you good and loud when he wakes.”
  The power he believed he held left him blinded from my bloodlust, but I could see clearly enough. I would rip his power out of his hands and rip his hands right after.
  I raised my head to face the entity as the wind of the storm suddenly moved in the opposite direction. The coils of black mist folded in on themselves with the air as it sucked inward like a lung filling for the first time in centuries.
  Black marred arms stretched out of the vapor first, and then the coils were gone. When Vorare's head came clear, I nearly wished it hadn’t.
  A cursed sorcerer starved in the grave. That was my first thought at the full sight of Vorare. He was towering with angular shoulders, and his skin pulled tight over his lean muscles. It was the color of tar. His hair pooled in long, dark waves over a face lined by pulsing cracks of dried blood. It was as though his veins were rejecting the red in them.
  When he opened his eyes, they were nothing but a void, black, almost resembling holes punched into a face.
  At my side eye, I caught a sight of Higan nodding his head in a manner that suggested he was acknowledging the entity.
   It looked so appalling.
  “Vorare,” Higan spoke like a priest, half hoping his god would look his way. “I feed you now, A lupomancer. She's stronger than the sorceresses who sealed you. She’s yours. In exchange—”
  In exchange? My heart reached louder again. Was there more he wanted? He dared to want more?
  “Exchange?“ A sound that seemingly came out of Vorare echoed in a pitch too wrong for a living throat.
  Hearing it a second time did nothing to ease my ears. They tingled like a bruise and pulsed in protest.
  Higan audibly swallowed and pressed on. “In exchange, you kill another problem for me. There’s a primordial in my territory. A werewolf too old, too strong for me to end. Kill him for me, and he's also yours to feed on after.”
  I felt the blood drain out of my fingertips. The silver bit deeper, but not as deeply as my anger. My mind snatched the word Primordial, and I croaked through my teeth, “Ethan.”
  I felt another thump in my heart, and I heard a sicker, strained velvety version of my voice slowly push past my control. “May I?“
  Higan shifted his gaze his back to me, catching my glare. He didn't flinch, and I desperately wanted to show him that he should. “You really thought I'd buy the idea that he was just an Alpha?“
  He leaned in to whisper his words in a venomous hush. “He didn’t hide it well, Harlyn. Not after that Christmas party. That show he put on? You think I really wouldn't notice?”
  My lips parted, but nothing came. A voice in my head overlapped with his rambling.
  “He'll take him away from us if we don't do something,” My Sorceress pressed in gingerly, like her own anger wasn't boiling my veins.
  The wind tore hot through the clearing. It stank of silver, blood, and open graves.
  “How long will you keep letting them take from us?“ She screeched this time, tearing through my mind. My vision blurred, fading slowly as I panted. The chains around my wrists rattled against the stone.
  I could see Vorare’s shape drifting forward with one foot brushing the ground like he wasn’t really bound by it.
  Higan shuffled aside. “Have her and show me how to break something untamable.”
  A growl came out of my throat, and I knew I was losing myself. My wolf had her claws pushing through my mind without warning. I'd taken her silence as being weakened by the silver, but of course, that wouldn't be enough to stop Higan's demise.
  I waited as Vorare approached.
  His mouth twitched in some off-putting shape, splitting his lips in a manner that a normal human anatomy wouldn't allow. He reached a mangled hand out. His palm hollow and fingers crooked like dead branches.
  The chains were still holding. My sorcery curled under my skin in uncontrollable waves. I had never dared to explore yet. I could taste my power, trying to chew through the metal as the voices tried to chew through my mind.
  Vorare’s fingers hovered a breath from my chest. My bones hummed under the skin as I kept tugging at the burning silver for a crack.
  The dreadful metal stung worse than ice clawing into my bones. The more I tugged at it, the more helpless I felt, and so much more was the rage.
  He wasn’t here for me.
  He didn’t summon this thing to devour me. I was merely the bait for Ethan. MY ETHAN.
  The thought made my pulse rattle so hard I almost gagged on it. Higan’s truth rang repeatedly as both sides pushed me further. Sweat ran down my burning body as my eyes held Vorare's haunting pair.
  Ethan. He was everything Becca failed to break in me, yet Higan planned to gut him out by proxy.
  “Permission,” My anger wasn't asking for permission anymore; it was demanding it. If I were to burn at the end, then so be it.
  I thanked my lucky stars as the silver buckled. I felt the links crack under the frost that poured off my veins with white fire snaking up my arms to reach my shoulders.
  An honest threatening growl tore through my lungs as my entire body thrummed with vibration that pulsed the air around us.
  Vorare’s spindly hand recoiled like I’d spat acid on him. His empty sockets blinked with ambition but then flickered away which made it lose for the first time.
  Higan stumbled back, his boots scraping grit. “Harlyn!” he barked like he could command me back to the chains.
  My knees cracked as my limbs tingled. I moved to stand regardless and turned my gaze to him. I spat out my voice through my teeth. “Touch him, I dare you to.“